Der stile antico in der Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs: Studien zu Bachs Spätwerk by

Christoph Wolff
Review by: Robert L. Marshall
Notes, Second Series, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Sep., 1970), pp. 33-34
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/896753 .
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 BOOK REVIEWS
Compiled and edited by DON M. RANDEL
Der stile antico in der Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs: Studien zu Bachs
Spatwerk.By ChristophWolff.(Beiheftezum Archiv fur Musikwissen-
schaft,6.) Wiesbaden: Franz SteinerVerlag, 1968. [227 p.; DM 60.-]
It is well known that J. S. Bach in his
late years cultivated a retrospectivestyle.
The celebrated canonic cycles (the Vom
Himmel hoch variations, the Musical Of-
fering,the Art of Fugue) are perhaps the
most apparent manifestationsof this artis-
tic attitude; but it is evident as well in
a number of works written according to
a "Palestrinian" ideal known in the ba-
roque era as the stile antico. Christoph
Wolffhas set out in this important book
to assess the nature and significanceof
this style in the music of Bach.
Wolff makes clear at once that if a
priori criteria based on the established
hallmarks of stile antico are applied
strictly-alla breve notation; scalar, aperi-
odic, nonsequential melodic ductus; aus-
tere, nonaffectiveexpression-then only
ten pieces, all dating fromthe last decades
of Bach's career, can be considered stile
antico compositions: three movements
from the B minor Mass (Kyrie II, Credo
in unum Deum, Confiteor),five numbers
from the third part of the Clavieriubung
(the firstsection of the St. Anne Fugue,
the "large" Kyrie triptych,BWV 669-671,
the organ chorale Aus tiefer Not, BWV
686), the Fugue in E major fromthe Well-
Tempered Clavier, part 2, and a recently
discovered sixteen-measurechoral setting
of the Credo intonationprepared by Bach
as an insertion into a mass by G. B.
Bassani.
The mere existence of this repertory
raises a number of questions, and before
he turns his attention to an analysis of
the compositions,Wolff deals with them
admirably. Surely the most obvious ques-
tions are: Why did Bach compose any
stile antico works?Whence did he derive
his familiaritywith and knowledge of the
style?
33
We are reminded that by the end of
the seventeenthcenturya rather elaborate
"doctrine of styles"had evolved, and that
this doctrine,as put into practice in Italy
and imported into Austria and South
Germany, deemed the "Palestrina" style
as the appropriate idiom for Latin sacred
music. Wolff reminds us, too, that the
Protestant Leipzig liturgyof Bach's time
included Latin compositions-probably to
a much greater extent than has hitherto
been suspected. Bach, then, had occasion
to compose Latin masses as part of his
duties as directorof music of the Leipzig
churches.Moreover,his acquaintance with
both the theory and practice of the stile
antico was not inconsiderable. As one of
the major contributions of his study,
Wolff has reconstructedmore completely
than ever before Bach's personal library
of Latin church music written by other
composers.A detailed and invaluable cata-
logue of these thirtyworks(in twenty-four
"numbers"), containing compositions by
(among others) Palestrina, Bassani, Bern-
hard, Caldara, and Pergolesi, is provided
as an appendix to the volume. Wolff
suggests that this collection testifies to
Bach's close connections with musical
activitiesin the Catholic city of Dresden,
and via Dresden with the Vienna of Fux
and Caldara, and beyond Vienna even
with Italy. (It is known that Padre Mar-
tini was aware of Bach and his art during
Bach's lifetime.)The fact that Bach pos-
sessed a copy of the original edition of
Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum,a work trans-
lated into German and published by
Bach's pupil Lorenz Mizler, is properly
adduced by Wolff as evidence that Bach
had first-handknowledge of the theoret-
ical basis of the stile antico. Wolff's ex-
position of this whole constellation of
historical,biographical, and documentary
material is a resourcefulsynthesisof much
recent research and his own archival
studies.
The chapters of the monograph con-
cerned directlywith stylisticanalysis are
in every way as systematicand thorough
as the preliminary chapters. Wolff de-
velops precise criteria which pennit him
to distinguishbetween four rather closely
related stylisticphenomena: the Palestrina
style itself, the general manifestationsof
the stile antico in the late baroque, the
peculiarly Bachian approximation of the
Palestrina style as exemplifiedin the ten
core compositions,and, finally,a repertory
with an archaic flavor which Bach culti-
vated not only in his late years but
throughouthis life. The isolation of this
last idiom, which Wolff appropriately
labels "alla breve style," is crucial to his
thesis. It allows for the consideration of
over thirtyadditional compositions,works
such as the six-part ricercar from the
Musical Offering, the C-sharp minor
Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier,
part 1, motet choruses from the church
cantatas, and so on. Through Wolff'sper-
ceptive comparisons of these two reper-
tories we gain an appreciation for Bach's
own fine discrimination and control of
subtle shadings and distinctionsof styles
and traditions.
Wolff'sproposed chronological ordering
for the ten stile antico pieces is something
of a tour de force. It formsthe next logi-
cal step in his presentationand furnishes
an opportunityto summarizethe principal
stylisticfindingsof the central chapters.
Utilizing known dates such as the 1733
dedication of the B minor Missa and the
1739 publication of ClavieriibungIII, the
author traces a developmentcharacterized
by an ever-purer application of stile
antico principles.The developmentbegins
with the second Kyrie of the B minor
Mass, includes Bach's copies and arrange-
ments of compositions by others (an
arrangementof the Suscepit Israel section
of a C major Magnificat by Caldara is
described and published here for the first
time), and culminates with the move-
ments from the B minor Mass Credo.
34
Wolff maintains that the logic of this
developmentdemands that the Credo and
Confiteor sections of the B minor Mass
be dated in the early 1740s,that is, before
Bach had begun, in the Musical Offering
and Art of Fugue, to explore new possi-
bilities and applications of the stile antico
experiment and experience. This argu-
ment contradictsthe 1748/49 dating pro-
posed in the new chronology of Georg
von Dadelsen, but its cogencyas put forth
by Wolffis difficultto refute.
It is difficultin fact to find fault with
any part of this sober and penetrating
study. One wonders, to be sure, if the
mysteriousname "Johann Baal," one of
the composersnamed in the catalogue of
Latin works in Bach's collection,may not
be a corruption of "Bach" and refer to
a member of the family.One regretsthat
Wolff did not expand this catalogue to
embrace all the music Bach is known or
reasonably assumed to have copied or
possessed. (In a second appendix, for ex-
ample, Wolff did see fit to list, for the
sake of completeness, all the liturgical
cantus firmi employed in the music of
Bach, whether or not particular compo-
sitions in the list play a role in his in-
vestigations.)Finally, one can take issue
with Wolff'sargumentthat, though Bach's
library of Latin music was most likely of
Dresden provenance (p. 24), it is "most
unlikely" that Bach in turn may have
written his own masses for that city (p.
34). That possibility,though, in view of
the dedication of the B minor Missa and
Bach's disaffectionwith his Leipzig posi-
tion after 1730, would seem to be not at
all unlikely.
The main point must not be obscured.
This book enriches every facet of Bach
scholarship: performance and editorial
practice, compositional process, chronol-
ogy, biography, and stylistic analysis.
ChristophWolffhas made one of the most
significantcontributionsto the Bach liter-
ature since the establishmentof the new
chronologyover a decade ago.
ROBERT L. MARSHALL
Universityof Chicago